LUMINOUS SPECIMEN
YURI ENDO IDAS HONGIK UNIVERSITY SPRING 2012 PRODUCT DESIGN STUDIO I PROFESSOR ANDREA DICHIARA
preface The prime purpose of this publication is to present developments and process of an academic course, Product Design Studio I, conducted by Professor/Designer Andrea Dichiara, which aims to explore the world of interior design, technologies and materials to develop a contemporary bathroom product and ambience within. In connection with my thesis project, which focuses on the properties of lights and the perception of space, throughout this course work, I have explored alternate possibilities of bathroom lighting design, with a strong emphasis on digital media art form.
luminous specimen
concept
prototyping + evaluation
Texts, photography and publication design by Yuri Endo
01 02 03 04
research + development
installation*
concept
01
In many conventional commercial or residential premises, when compared to other spaces of edifices, bathroom lighting tends to be monotonous, with its mere focus on giving people good visibility. In that sense, this project’s goal is to merge digital media art form and fundamental aspects of the space illumination; from aesthetic appeal to energy efficiency, to propose a constructive and dynamic light fitting for contemporary bath spaces. As such, my initial idea is to create a bathing and grooming space where light therapeutic values are digitally accentuated as media façade-like installation, and in which ensures harmonious lighting for each three facility areas; toilet, bathing and washing, for both day and night uses. >CONCEPTS 1. Converting light sources into art form to achieve vivacious ambient lighting display. 2. Designing crisp light for personal grooming in the morning and visionary lighting scheme for relaxation in the evening. 3. Replacing physical walls and/or partitions, windows with digital solution.
02
research+ development
In order to review the principle of light, I started my research by exploring the world of science and physics, via various basic light and optics experiments. The images left and above show the result of one of the experiments, utilizing a glass prism. When a narrow beam of white light passes through the prism, the white light is spread up into the colors of visible light spectrum, which is in the same color and order as does in the rainbow; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, respectively. In other words, white light is the mixture of the colors that prism separates out. Upon running several other similar tests, I became more interested in how a prism refracts light rays at specific offset angles, and creates intriguing optical illusions, hence, I decided to take this specific optical phenomenon as a highlight of this project.
As a second stage of the development, I constructed a kaleidoscope to examine the multiple mirror effect, as well as the formation of symmetrical oscillation patterns results by it. The left images show the result of what I observed when I looked through to one end of the device, where the colorful objects were placed. More precisely, I saw the light entering the other end of the tube, and the objects inside were presented as colorful, geometric patterns due to the reflections in the mirrors. Twisting the end piece made the objects tumbled, and resulted in further presenting varieties of color and patterns, as if they were locked up inside of the tube. This visual effect resulted in generating the idea of (Hikari no hyohon), which is Japanese for “luminous specimen,�; sealing light source inside of a prism as if it were a specimen. As shown in the drawings above, utilizing my concept of replacing the physical light with digital media solution, I designed the initial mock-up, constructed with a prism attached to a LCD screen, and the animation is projected on the prisms’ surfaces from behind.
prototyping + evaluation
03
Above images show how different types of glass prisms would present the same motion picture, which is projected from a LCD screen. As such, I used an iPod touch to map the same exact sequence from the movie footage on each glass prism. Upon attempting to capture the images from various angles, the pyramid shaped prism demonstrated the best results.
04
installation*
Although the academic course have came to the end, I plan to further develop this project as a part of said thesis work, supervised by Professor David Hall. On that note, please visit my research blog at ubernotes.blogspot.com, for updates.
LUMINOUS SPECIMEN
Yuri Endo 2012